Adverse experiences inevitably happen during development and childhood, and all adults-even high-functioning ones-carry with them childhood fears and anxieties. Growing neuropsychological data explains the ease with which fear and anxiety are activated, and the enormous power they have on the developing brain. Using recent findings from neuropsychology, Our Anxious Selves shows that who we are psychologically starts with the early presence of an easily aroused fear/anxiety system. It goes on to discuss how clinicians can view people's difficulties with self-confidence, how identity and self-destructive patterns can be traced back to these systems, and what clinicians can do to help. It also touches on intergenerational transmission of trauma, people's responses to COVID-19, PTSD, and real and imagined threats.

More than one hundred years after Freud began publishing some of his seminal theories, the concept of the unconscious still occupies a central position in many theoretical frameworks and clinical approaches. When trying to understand clients' internal and interpersonal struggles it is almost inconceivable not to look for unconscious motivation, conflicts and relational patterns. Clinicians also consider it a breakthrough to recognise how our own unconscious patterns have interacted with those of our clients. Although clinicians use concepts such as the unconscious and dissociation, in actuality many do not take into account the newly emerging neuropsychological attributes of nonconscious processes. As a result, assumptions and lack of clarity overtake information that can become central in our clinical work. This revolutionary book presents a new model of the unconscious, one that is continuing to emerge from the integration of neuropsychological research with clinical experience.